News

Marin macaroni-and-cheese suspect denies attack, tells his side of story

By Gary Klien, The Marin Independent Journal

Posted:
05/23/2013 10:02:31 AM PDT

Updated:
05/23/2013 10:02:36 AM PDT

In the case of People vs. John Jeffrey O'Connor, the defendant stipulates that he shook a box of macaroni and cheese on the night in question. But he vigorously denies using it as a weapon.

O'Connor, in an interview before his court hearing Wednesday, denied the allegations he pushed the box into the face of a paralyzed guest at his Corte Madera home. He also disputed the other allegations by his accuser and Central Marin police, who arrested him twice in one day last week.

"It's so wrong," said O'Connor, who is free on bail.

The investigation began at about 4 a.m. last Thursday, when Central Marin police arrested O'Connor on suspicion of punching a man in a wheelchair who was staying at his Corte Madera Avenue residence.

O'Connor was released on bail and returned home. A short time later, the paralyzed man called police to report that O'Connor assaulted him by shoving a box of macaroni and cheese in his face.

Police rushed back, found a damaged box of macaroni and cheese and arrested O'Connor again. O'Connor spent five or six nights in jail before he could arrange bail the second time. His accuser, 49, has since moved out.

In the interview Wednesday, O'Connor said nearly every detail alleged by the accuser and the police, and subsequently reported in news accounts, was wrong.

O'Connor said the accuser is not a tenant, as initially described by police, but an old friend who was injured in a rollover crash several

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months ago. The man, who is under county and private care, was between residences and needed a place to stay for about a month, O'Connor said. O'Connor said he let the injured man stay in one of his bedrooms for free on a short-term basis.

On the night of the incident, O'Connor said, a "speed freak" friend of the house guest came to visit at about 3 a.m. O'Connor let her in and went back to his room, but later came out to complain that the man and his friend were making too much noise, disturbing him and his 8-year-old son, who was in another bedroom.

The house guest rolled up in his wheelchair, blocked O'Connor's bedroom door and started to argue with him, according to O'Connor. Then the house guest called police and claimed O'Connor had punched him in the face. O'Connor said the man apparently faked his injuries by punching himself.

When O'Connor returned home after bailing out of jail, he learned that his 8-year-old son had wanted to cook a box of Trader Joe's macaroni and cheese that was in the home. The house guest allegedly told the child that the food belonged to him so he could not have it.

O'Connor said he was so angry that he took the box of macaroni and cheese and held it inches from his house guest's face.

"I shook it and I said, 'Is this your macaroni and cheese, (expletive)?'" O'Connor said. "I shook it in his face and the cops said I hit him with it."

Although Central Marin police booked O'Connor on felony counts the second time, the district attorney's office filed misdemeanor charges.

O'Connor also has a pending felony stalking case investigated by the Sausalito Police Department. Police said O'Connor allegedly harassed and stole property from a 69-year-old Sausalito man who fired him as a caregiver.

O'Connor has pleaded not guilty in both cases, which are being heard by Judge James Chou in Marin Superior Court.